The Girl Who Lived
by DaughterofLuthien
Summary: Utterly alone in the world after she is abandoned by her raggedy Doctor, 11-year-old Amelia Pond changes her name in an attempt to put her past behind her and start a new life at very special school.


Amelia Pond had no parents.

For all of her eleven years she had never been able to remember ever having had parents. She must have had them at one time, she reasoned... She was, after all, old enough to know that parents were just a little bit necessary in order for her to be alive at that very moment; she just couldn't remember anything about them. Or what had happened to them. And that scared her.

But what scared her even more were the dreams: beautiful, wispy things that almost faded out of her memory every time she woke up, leaving behind only vague images and a feeling of profound sadness which she couldn't quite explain, especially since what little she did remember of the dreams seemed to be quite happy and pleasant…

Perhaps what frightened her was the simple fact that they all seemed to be about the parents that she never had, couldn't ever have had. Wished she had. And the dreams also all contained a fourth member of her family: a sister, just the tiniest bit older than her, named Petunia.

She had first experienced the dreams two years ago, but that had been right after the whole "raggedy Doctor" incident, and everyone had thought that she was either a liar or insane at that point anyways, so what would've been the point in telling anyone? She knew for a fact that they would've all tried to feed her the stock sensible-adult lines and tell her that dreams couldn't hurt her and she shouldn't be afraid of them. Of course, less than two years ago, they had also told her not to be afraid of that crack in her wall, yet she still shivered when she remembered that… _thing_… staring at her from the hole that had opened where the crack had once been. No, there was no way on this earth that she would ever tell them, not unless she wanted to get herself sent to even more of those horrible psychiatrists…

In fact, in two years she had only ever told one person about the dreams, and that person was the little boy her age that lived next door, a little boy with a long and rather odd name: Severus Snape. Given the fact that they had first spoken after he admitted that he had been practically stalking her, she had found herself warming up to him surprisingly quickly, and it was not uncommon now for them to just sit and talk quietly together every chance they got. Often he would show little tricks that he could do, little tricks that he claimed were some sort of magic, and instead of being skeptical like most people would have been, she was inclined to believe him. After all, after seeing a police box materialize in her front yard and produce a slightly manic man who invaded her kitchen, ate fish custard, and fought monsters, how could she not believe in magic? Plus, she had found that, if she concentrated really hard, she could even do a bit of magic herself…

Amelia glanced at the little alarm clock on her bedside table. Seeing that the dream had woken her at some unearthly hour of the morning, she switched off her light, rolled back over, and made a valiant effort to go back to sleep. Yet even though she was extremely tired, her mind was still puzzling over the dreams, and so sleep didn't come until just a couple hours before dawn.

The next morning, she awoke to the sunlight streaming in on her face, which was odd as she always kept those curtains closed… Sleepily, but with just the tiniest twinge of fear in her chest, she opened her eyes, only to find a large tawny owl perched on the footboard of her bed. She blinked rapidly, then sat up quickly, startled. She stared at it for a good five minutes before she realized that it had something, some sort of paper, tied to its leg.

Tentatively, she crawled to the foot of her bed and reached up a shaking hand to the bird. "Good little owl…" she crooned softly, hoping beyond hope that her hand didn't look too like some sort of tasty field mouse and it wouldn't be inclined to take a nibble… But thankfully the bird stayed as still as a stone as her fingers curled around the paper and she yanked it free.

Once she held it in her hands, she saw that the paper was actually an envelope, addressed to her, and written in the most beautiful, emerald green ink that she had ever seen. Tuning it over carefully and curiously, she saw that it was sealed with a tiny symbol which she recognized as the seal of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She tore it open and had just yanked the little slip of paper inside free of its envelope, when she heard a voice calling from outside her window.

"Amelia! Amelia, you'll never guess! I got my letter!"

She relaxed somewhat when the pale face of a small boy with long, greasy black hair and a crooked nose appeared at her window. "Don't ever do that again, Severus," she scolded him, pretending to be cross. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

He looked sheepish as he climbed in the window and sat down on the sill. "Sorry…" he apologized, with the just the hint of a whine at the edge of his voice. "It's just my invitation to Hogwarts came with the post this morning, so I wanted to see if you'd gotten one, too." He glanced at the paper she held in her hands, immediately recognizing the spidery handwriting and iridescent ink. "I guess you did."

Busy reading and re-reading her letter, Amelia didn't respond.

"I knew you'd get one, you know," he added hopefully, as a way of trying to get her in a good mood once again. "You're really good at magic, almost as good as I am!"

She shot him a look, and he could see plainly that this tactic wasn't working, so he stayed silent, waiting for her to begin the conversation once she had cooled down enough to speak to him. As it turned out, he didn't have to wait long.

"Severus," she said suddenly, folding the letter up carefully and placing it beside her on the bed. "Everyone at Hogwarts will have a family, won't they?"

He nodded slowly, seeing where this was going. "Yeah, but I wouldn't worry about it. There are some orphans there too, I'm sure of it," he assured her, even though he wasn't at all sure that there were any orphans at Hogwarts. There might be by the time they got there, though, he reasoned, so it wasn't technically a lie… "Besides, your parents are dead. Nobody's going to make fun of you because your parents are dead. I won't let them," he added staunchly, raising his chin just a little and trying to look tough.

Amelia ignored his bravado. "But that's just the thing!" she continued. "I don't know that they are dead, not really! All I know is that they're 'not here,' and that won't be a very interesting story to tell the others in our year. Can you imagine?" Her voice was slowly rising in pitch as she became more and more agitated. "Whenever anyone asks me about my parents, I'd have to tell them that they're just gone! 'Well, are they dead?' they'd ask. 'No…' I'd be forced to tell them: 'no, I just simply have no idea where they are! I've lost them!'"

The boy winced at her sharp tone, sorry that he had stirred her into such a frenzy. "I suppose…" he suggested meekly, "I suppose you could just change your name. You know, become a whole different person. They you wouldn't have to deal with all those awkward questions."

It was just hasty suggestion, one that he barely considered himself before blurting it out, so he was surprised when she seemed to give it serious weight. "I'd love to be a new person…" she admitted, "And not have to worry about all of… _this_!" She gestured wildly around her. "But would Dumbledore be okay with that? They've already sent a letter addressed to Amelia Pond and everything, won't that mess up their records a bit?"

Severus laughed. "Magic, remember? We don't have to rely on those silly filing systems that you Muggles use. Our records file themselves!" She smiled, and he decided to press his luck. "So what name are you going to pick for yourself?"

"I dunno yet…" She grinned at him. "What name do you want me to pick?"

"Lily," he answered immediately, without hesitation. "I've always liked the name Lily. Plus, then your name would be Lily Pond!" He laughed good-naturedly, and she immediately joined in.

"Lily it is! But I'll still need a last name," she reminded him. "And I have this sneaking suspicion that Lily Pond just isn't going to cut it…"

"Williams?" he suggested, but she shook her head and giggled.

"What, like that Rory boy that lives down the street?" she snorted. "I don't think so."

"Davison?" Another head shake. "Evans? Hartnell?"

"I think I like Evans the best…" she mused for moment. "Lily Evans…" she tried out the name, rolling it slowly off her tongue. When she had finished, she looked back him with a small smile. "That's the one, I'm sure of it."

He grinned back at her. "Great to meet you, then, Lily Evans!"

Amelia grinned too, this time, playing along. "Great to meet you too, Severus Snape."

Neither of them realized just how important their two names would become in the coming years…


End file.
